With complaints and frustration in Massachusetts, so some have found a vaccine registration process complicated and confusing, an Arlington woman took it upon herself to make it easier.
Olivia Adams, a software developer and mother of two young children, told us that she decided to create her own website after learning from her mother-in-law about how difficult it was to find available vaccines and sign up for an appointment with Massachusetts online portal.
“While the state website has a centralized location, there is a different website for each site and they all work slightly differently,” Adams said. “And there’s no good way to say,‘ Okay, what places are available next week or how many places are available? Am I wasting my time calling all the CVS around me to see what’s going on? “
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The developer, while on maternity leave for her job at athenahealth, created macovidvaccines.com, where vaccination sites and their available time slots are on one page.
Adams said he has been working overnight for his 2-month-old baby and after his children went to bed for the past three weeks. He estimates that it has taken about 40 hours to get the site up and running.
“It’s been a learning curve,” he said. “I’ve never created my own real website before it was so complicated, so it’s been a great safe learning experience.”
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Adams acknowledges that the launch of the Massachusetts vaccine hotline announced by Gov. Charlie Baker on Friday is a big step, but he doesn’t think it will go far enough.
“I think so many people want to have a website that they can see,” he said. “We have the technology. The resources haven’t been put in yet, so I hope this has traction and we can move somewhere.”
At Friday’s press conference about the call center we asked Baker if he would consider implementing Adams ’idea on the state website.
“Send us her name, we’ll talk to her,” Baker replied.
“I think the feedback we get from outsiders is incredibly helpful,” he added. “And if I sat here, I could go through a long list of adjustments, changes, modifications, reforms, and new initiatives that have been put in place since this started and that involve feedback from the outside.”
Two representatives from the state of Massachusetts, Rep. Mike Connolly and Rep. Jay Livingstone, also took note of Adams’ initiative. On Saturday they sent a joint letter to Baker asking him to support his work and embed the design he created on the state’s official vaccine programming site.
Adams “is the vaccine hero we’ve all been waiting for !!” Conmolly said in a tweet, tagging her in the message.
Adams said he will have a happy meeting with state officials if they arrive.
“I’m 100% open,” he said. “Let’s get out of this mess as fast as possible.”
Residents and state lawmakers have complained about the difficulty of navigating the Massachusetts immunization website. Adams says the problem gets to the top.
“The federal government has pushed states to work on this and states have said a little bit to others … we have our own places, Fenway, Gillette, big ones like that, that have been working and that yes you have this centralized place where you can look, but anywhere else you have the vaccines it’s like, here’s your supply, figure it out, ”he said. “And this is where the problem is shrinking, this decentralization. It’s very difficult for our residents to figure out where to go. It’s definitely an organizational problem, but we can improve it … So I hope we’re able to get more resources and I can help where I can. “
While she has had a lot of fun creating her vaccination registration website, Adams says it’s crazy how many people have approached her to tell her that’s exactly what they wanted her to provide. the state.
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“It’s crazy that, after I started making this known, that there has been so much publicity and so many people have said, ‘That’s what I’ve been looking for, that’s what I needed,'” he said. The state did not realize this and could not do so in a more centralized way with resources that did not work at night during maternity leave. “
With maternity leave coming to an end soon, Adams said that if he has enough time to continue working at the site, his dream is for people to be able to register and receive emails when more vaccine appointments are available at his place. area.